_To Edmund Gosse._
Stevenson and his family sailed for America a few days after the
date of this letter. Mr. Gosse has described the episode in his
recollections of R. L. S. (_Critical Kit-kats_). Stevenson's life
in the South Seas began in the following year, and his friends in
England saw him no more.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
August 17th [1887].
Dear Gosse,
I went to-day to R. L. S.'s ship, which is at the Albert Dock, about 20
minutes in the train from Fenchurch Street. Its sailing has been put off
till Monday forenoon, so there is more time to do something. I couldn't,
after all, get _on_ the ship--as she stood off from the dock, without a
convenient approach, and both the captain and the steward (whom I wanted
to see) were not there, as I was told by a man on the dock who was
seeing some things being put on by a crane in which I couldn't be
transferred. The appearance of the vessel was the reverse of attractive,
though she is rather large than small. I write to-night to Mrs.
Stevenson, to ask if they are really coming up to sail--that is if
nothing has interfered at the last moment. If they are, there is nothing
to be done to deter them, that I see. I shall ask her to _telegraph_ me
an answer. I shall feel that I must go again (to the ship), as I don't
very well see how things are to be sent there. I will telegraph you what
she telegraphs me and what I decide to do.
Ever yours,
HENRY JAMES.
_To Robert Louis Stevenson._
H. J.'s article on R. L. S. appeared in the _Century Magazine_,
April, 1888, and was reprinted in _Partial Portraits_.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
October 30th, 1887.
My dear Louis,
It is really a delight to get your charming letter (from the
undecipherable lake) just this very blessed minute. Long alienation has
made my American geography vague, and not knowing _what_ your lake is I
know still less _where_ it is. Nevertheless I roughly suspect it of
being in the Adirondacks; if it isn't, may it excuse the injury. Let me
tell you, quickly and crudely, that I am quite exhilarated that you like
the Article. I thought--or rather I hoped--that you would, and yet I
feared you wouldn't--i.e. mightn't--and altogether I was not so
convinced but that your expression of pleasure is a reassurance to me as
well as a gratification. I felt, while I wrote, that you served me well;
you were really, my dear fellow, a capital subject--I will modestly
grant you that, though it takes the bloom from my merit. To be not only
witty one's self but the cause in others of a wit that is not at one's
expense--that is a rare and high character, and altogether yours. I
devoutly hope that it's in the November Century that the thing appears,
and also that it was not too apparent to you in it that I hadn't seen a
proof--a privation I detest. I wrote to you some three weeks or so
ago--c/o Scribners. Wondrous seems to me the fate that leads you to the
prospect of wintering at--well, wherever you are. The succession of
incidents and places in your career is ever romantic. May you find what
you need--white, sunny Winter hours, not too stove-heated nor too
pork-fed, with a crisp dry air and a frequent leisure and no desperation
of inanition. And may much good prose flow from it all. I wish I could
see you--in my mind's eye: but que dis-je? I do--and the minutest
particularities of your wooden bower rise before me. I see the
clapboards and the piazza and the door-step and the door-handle, and the
road in front and the yard behind. Don't yearn to extinction for the
trim little personality of Skerryvore. I have great satisfaction in
hearing (from Mrs. Procter, of course) that that sweet house is let--to
those Canadians. May they be punctual with their rent. Do tell your
wife, on her return from the wild West, that I _supplicate_ her to write
to me, with items, details, specifications, and insistences. I am now
collecting some papers into a volume; and the Article, par excellence,
in the midst. May the American air rest lightly on you, my dear friend:
I wish it were mine to turn it on!
Ever faithfully yours,
HENRY JAMES.
P.S. My love to your wife goes without saying--but I send a very
explicit friendliness to your mother. I hope she returns the liking of
America. And I bless the ticking Lloyd.
_To Robert Louis Stevenson._
Stevenson's letter (answered by the following) of admiration of
_Roderick Hudson_ and _execration_ of _The Portrait of a Lady_ is
included in the _Letters to his Family and Friends_, edited by Sir
Sidney Colvin.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
December 5th [1887].
My dear Louis,
I could almost hate poor Roderick H. (in whom, at best, as in all my
past and shuffled off emanations and efforts, my interest is of the
slenderest,) for making you write so much more about him than about a
still more fascinating hero. If you had only given me a small instalment
of that romantic serial, The Mundane Situation of R. L. S.! My dear
fellow, you skip whole numbers at a time. Your correspondent wouldn't. I
am really delighted you can find something at this late day in that work
in which my diminutive muse first tried to elongate her little legs. It
is a book of considerable good faith, but I think of limited skill.
Besides, directly my productions are finished, or at least thrust out to
earn their living, they seem to _me_ dead. They dwindle when
weaned--removed from the parental breast, and only flourish, a little,
while imbibing the milk of my plastic care. None the less am I touched
by your excellent and friendly words. Perhaps I am touched even more by
those you dedicate to the less favoured _Portrait_. My dear Louis, I
don't think I follow you here--why does that work move you to such
scorn--since you can put up with Roderick, or with any of the others? As
they are, so it is, and as it is, so they are. Upon my word you are
unfair to it--and I scratch my head bewildered. 'Tis surely a graceful,
ingenious, elaborate work--with too many pages, but with (I think) an
interesting subject, and a good deal of life and style. There! _All_ my
works may be damnable--but I don't perceive the particular damnability
of that one. However I feel as if it were almost gross to defend
myself--for even your censure pleases and your restrictions refresh. I
have this very day received from Mr. Bain your _Memories and Portraits_,
and I lick my chops in advance. It is very delectable, I can see, and it
has the prettiest coat and face of any of your volumes.--London is
settling to its winter pace, and the cool rich fogs curtain us in. I see
Colvin once in a while _dans le monde_, which however I frequent less
and less. I miss you too sensibly. My love to your wife and mother--my
greeting to the brave Lloyd.
Ever yours very faithfully,
H. JAMES.
P.S. I am unspeakably vexed at the Century's long delay in printing my
paper on you--it is quite sickening. But I am helpless--and they tell me
it won't come out till _March_--d----n 'em all. I am also
sorry--very--not to have any other prose specimens of my own genius to
send you. I have really written a good deal lately--but the beastly
periodicals hold them back: I can't make out why. But I trust the dance
will begin before long, and that then you may glean some pleasure. I
pray you, do write something yourself for one who _knows_ and yet is
famished: for there isn't a morsel here that will keep one alive. I
won't question you--'twere vain--but I wish I knew more about you. I
want to _see_ you--where you live and _how_--and the complexion of your
days. But I don't know even the name of your habitat nor the date of
your letter: neither were on the page. I bless you all the same.
_To W. D. Howells._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
January 2nd, 1888.
My dear Howells,
Your pretty read book (that is a misprint for _red_, but it looks well,
better than it deserves, so I let it stand,) the neat and attractive
volume, with its coquettish inscription over its mystifying date, came
in to me exactly as a new year's gift. I was delighted to get it, for I
had not perused it in the pages of Harper, for reasons that you will
understand--knowing as you must how little the habit of writing in the
serial form encourages one to read in that odious way, which so many
simple folk, thank heaven, think the best. I was on the point of getting
_April Hopes_ to add to the brave array of its predecessors (mine by
purchase, almost all of them,) when your graceful act saved me the
almost equally graceful sacrifice. I can make out why you are at Buffalo
almost as little as I believe that you believe that I have "long
forgotten" you. The intimation is worthy of the most tortuous feminine
mind that you have represented--say this wondrous lady, with the
daughter, in the very first pages of April Hopes, with whom I shall make
immediate and marvelling acquaintance. Your literary prowess takes my
breath away--you write so much and so well. I seem to myself a small
brown snail crawling after a glossy antelope. Let me hope that you
_enjoy_ your work as much as you ought to--that the grind isn't greater
than the inevitable (from the moment one really tries to _do_ anything).
Certainly one would never guess it, from your abounding page. How much I
wish I could keep this lovely new year by a long personal talk with you.
I am troubled about many things, about many of which you could give me,
I think (or rather I am sure,) advice and direction. I have entered
upon evil days--but this is for your most private ear. It sounds
portentous, but it only means that I am still staggering a good deal
under the mysterious and (to me) inexplicable injury
wrought--apparently--upon my situation by my two last novels, the
_Bostonians_ and the _Princess_, from which I expected so much and
derived so little. They have reduced the desire, and the demand, for my
productions to zero--as I judge from the fact that though I have for a
good while past been writing a number of good short things, I remain
irremediably unpublished. Editors keep them back, for months and years,
as if they were ashamed of them, and I am condemned apparently to
eternal silence. You must be so widely versed in all the reasons of
things (of this sort, to-day) in the U.S. that if I could discourse with
you awhile by the fireside I should endeavour to draw from you some
secret to break the spell. However, I don't despair, for I think I am
now really in better form than I have ever been in my life, and I
propose yet to do many things. Very likely too, some day, all my buried
prose will kick off its various tombstones at once. Therefore don't
betray me till I myself have given up. That won't be for a long time
yet. If we could have that rich conversation I should speak to you too
of your monthly polemics in _Harper_ and tell you (I think I should go
as far as that) of certain parts of the business in which I am less with
you than in others. It seems to me that on occasions you mix things up
that don't go together, sometimes make mistakes of proportion, and in
general incline to insist more upon the restrictions and limitations,
the _a priori_ formulas and interdictions, of our common art, than upon
that priceless freedom which is to me the thing that makes it worth
practising. But at this distance, my dear Howells, such things are too
delicate and complicated--they won't stand so long a journey. Therefore
I won't attempt them--but only say how much I am struck with your
energy, ingenuity, and courage, and your delightful interest in the
charming questions. I don't care how much you dispute about them if you
will only remember that a grain of example is worth a ton of precept,
and that with the imbecility of babyish critics the serious writer need
absolutely not concern himself. I am surprised, sometimes, at the things
you notice and seem to care about. One should move in a diviner air....
I even confess that since the _Bostonians_, I find myself holding the
"critical world" at large in a singular contempt. I go so far as to
think that the literary sense is a distinctly waning quality. I can
speak of your wife and children only interrogatively--which will tell
you little--and me, I fear, less. But let me at least be affirmative to
the extent of wishing them all, very affectionately, and to Mrs. H. in
particular, the happiest New Year. Go on, my dear Howells, and send me
your books always--as I _think_ I send you mine. Continue to write only
as your admirable ability moves you and believe me
Ever faithfully yours,
HENRY JAMES.
_To Robert Louis Stevenson._
The novel, just begun, was _The Tragic Muse_.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
July 31st [1888].
My dear Louis,
You are too far away--you are too absent--too invisible, inaudible,
inconceivable. Life is too short a business and friendship too delicate
a matter for such tricks--for cutting great gory masses out of 'em by
the year at a time. Therefore come back. Hang it all--sink it all and
come back. A little more and I shall cease to believe in you: I don't
mean (in the usual implied phrase) in your veracity, but literally and
more fatally in your relevancy--your objective reality. You have become
a beautiful myth--a kind of unnatural uncomfortable unburied _mort_. You
put forth a beautiful monthly voice, with such happy notes in it--but it
comes from too far away, from the other side of the globe, while I
vaguely know that you are crawling like a fly on the nether surface of
my chair. Your adventures, no doubt, are wonderful; but I don't
successfully evoke them, understand them, believe in them. I do in those
you write, heaven knows--but I don't in those you perform, though the
latter, I know, are to lead to new revelations of the former and your
capacity for them is certainly wonderful enough. This is a selfish
personal cry: I wish you back; for literature is lonely and Bournemouth
is barren without you. Your place in my affection has not been usurped
by another--for there is not the least little scrap of another to usurp
it. If there were I would perversely try to care for him. But there
isn't--I repeat, and I literally care for nothing but your return. I
haven't even your novel to stay my stomach withal. The wan wet months
elapse and I see no sign of it. The beautiful portrait of your wife
shimmers at me from my chimney-piece--brought some months ago by the
natural McClure--but seems to refer to one as dim and distant and
delightful as a "toast" of the last century. I wish I could make you
homesick--I wish I could spoil your fun. It is a very featureless time.
The summer is rank with rheumatism--a dark, drowned, unprecedented
season. The town is empty but I am not going away. I have no money, but
I have a little work. I have lately written several short fictions--but
you may not see them unless you come home. I have just begun a novel
which is to run through the _Atlantic_ from January 1st and which I
aspire to finish by the end of this year. In reality I suppose I shall
not be fully delivered of it before the middle of next. After that, with
God's help, I propose, for a longish period, to do nothing but short
lengths. I want to leave a multitude of pictures of my time, projecting
my small circular frame upon as many different spots as possible and
going in for number as well as quality, so that the number may
constitute a total having a certain value as observation and testimony.
But there isn't so much as a creature here even to whisper such an
intention to. Nothing lifts its hand in these islands save blackguard
party politics. Criticism is of an abject density and puerility--it
doesn't exist--it writes the intellect of our race too low. Lang, in the
D.N., every morning, and I believe in a hundred other places, uses his
beautiful thin facility to write everything down to the lowest level of
Philistine twaddle--the view of the old lady round the corner or the
clever person at the dinner party. The incorporated society of authors
(I belong to it, and so do you, I think, but I don't know what it is)
gave a dinner the other night to American literati to thank them for
praying for international copyright. I carefully forbore to go, thinking
the gratulation premature, and I see by this morning's _Times_ that the
banquetted boon is further off than ever. Edmund Gosse has sent me his
clever little life of Congreve, just out, and I have read it--but it
isn't so good as his Raleigh. But no more was the insufferable
subject.... Come, my dear Louis, grow not too thin. I can't question
you--because, as I say, I don't conjure you up. You have killed the
imagination in me--that part of it which formed your element and in
which you sat vivid and near. Your wife and Mother and Mr. Lloyd suffer
also--I must confess it--by this failure of breath, of faith. Of course
I have your letter--from Manasquan (is that the idiotic name?) of
the--ingenuous me, to think there was a date! It was terribly
impersonal--it did me little good. A little more and I shan't believe in
you enough to bless you. Take this, therefore, as your last chance. I
follow all with an aching wing, an inadequate geography and an
ineradicable hope. Ever, my dear Louis, yours, to the last snub--